Superstate arm-twisting is the mother of invention.
The Hemi V8 engine may be history – or will soon be that, tragically – but Dodge hasn’t given up on engines just yet.
A new engine – rather than another electric motor – is coming, soon. It’s not a V8 – because V8 engines are too big, all the time, to “qualify” for legality under the anti-engine regulatory regime of the Biden Thing. Which recently “mandated” that all engines must soon approach the 50 MPG mark – else be heavily fined. As well as “comply” with “emissions” regulations that “mandate” essentially zero emissions – at the tailpipe – of the dread gas carbon dioxide. The one that amounts to less than .01 percent of the gasses that compose the Earth’s atmosphere. We are supposed to believe that a fraction of that fraction – “emitted” by gas-burning engines – constitutes an existential threat to the “climate.”

Kind of like the “virus” that was so threatening it didn’t kill 99.8 percent of the population.The replacement for the Hemi series of V8 engines – in 5.7, 6.2 and 6.4 liter displacements – will be an in-line six of about half that displacement, heavily turbo-boosted to make up for it.
It is the “Hurricane” 3.0 liter engine, which is an entirely different kind of engine. The Hemis were pushrod-actuated, overhead valve engines with just one camshaft operating the works. This simple – and compact – layout, with fewer parts – defines the modern V8 engine, which has been around since the mid-1950s and for good reason.
The design works.
Indeed it does; the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine has been said to be the most successful invention in all of history. Which is what they hate most about it. The ICE has for years stood for freedom, independence, and readily-available mobility for the American hoi polloi. It liberated entire populations, quite literally. No wonder the shitlibs hate it so fanatically. Now, about this new thang.
Is anyone being forced to buy these (V8—M) “hogs”? Are there not less “hoggy” alternatives available for those who want such? If Dodge can sell its “hogs,” does it not imply that people want them? If so what gives the busybodies the right to thwart the transaction?
Since these questions haven’t been raised, the answer is this new in-line six, which does have multiple overhead cams and four valves per cylinder. Plus two turbochargers.
These are the keys not just to horsepower but compliance.
The cams and valves increase airflow. The turbos increase effective displacement. A V8 inhales a certain amount of air; a turbocharged engine is force-fed air. Negative vs. positive pressure. But – in the case of the latter – only when under boost. When not, the engine inhales less air – and burns (and emits) less gas.

And that is the key to compliance, at least on paper. Which is all that matters in these latter days, when car companies are obliged to build cars for the government first and customers second.
Just another aspect of life in this demented nation that the Left has turned upside-down and inside-out. They’re “experts,” see, and so very much better than mere serf-class oafs like you and me. Hats off to Dodge for finding the workaround, I suppose. But as we used to say in the H-D shop: There ain’t no replacement for cubic-inch displacement.
4
- Entries
V6, V8, V10, V12, I6, I4, flat 4, flat 6. Then there’s the old slant 6, plus the variety of 1,2,and 3 piston motors.
All produce power proportional to displacement, compression ratio, and air flow.
500hp and 475 ft/lbs torque is nothing to sneeze at. Pushing a vehicle down the road requires the same amount of energy, and fuel, regardless of the engine size or displacement, turbo’s or not. All the extra is just for the fun of accelerating 🙂
The left wants you out of cars, all cars. Cars represent freedom. Don’t be fooled by the push for electric. They don’t want you in an electric car either.
Your last sentence is the key, Barry. They do not intend for the little people to have care, because like medieval serfs they will be bound to the land. No travel outside your assigned work zone without prior authorization by your local EcoCommisar.
Exactly as it was in The PRC before Deng and for a long time after that.
Now Xi is moving back to that and our “Elite” love Xi as much as they loved Lenin, Stalin and Mussolini in the 20s.
Social credit scores and bicycles. One new and one old ChiCom inventions.
As long as the NHRA is still around, there will be hemis. What do YOU think powers the funny cars and top fuel dragsters???
Zero relationship between the top fuel/funny car hemi and the Chrysler hemi except for the hemispherical shape of the combustion chambers. The drag cars use nothing from any production based engine.
All of those motors are custom built by engine builders other than passenger car manufacturers.
Even Pro Stock, Pro Modified and other classes that use hemi engines and have the appearance of a passenger car are custom made engines without a single factory part.
The only class that doesn’t do that is the Factory Hot Rod class that has actual passenger cars available to the public racing each other with some modifications to handle the drag strip and at such speeds. Only Ford, Chevy and Dodge field teams in that class. Looks like Dodge will soon drop out of that class and it’s probable the class itself dies shortly after.
Who cares, they run in a circle
Actually, drag racing goes in a straight line.
Ha, supposed to be straight.
Every so often someone makes a hard right or left 🙂
They Walked Away.
Mostly.
I remember the front engine top fuel cars. Engine explodes, chassis rips in two, driver has an engine in his lap…
Then Don Garlits built the rear engine one, Swamp Rat #?…
I remember that when you mention it. Could not remember it was Garlits.
Tig welding CM steel tubing – John Force spent a lot of money determining why the welds failed due to his teammates and his crashes. I learned a lot reading all the data and methods learned.
Robert Hight, a driver on Force Racing Team and Force’s son-in-law, suffered a shoulder injury in a crash. To get back in the car they developed a special seat belt harness for him. It stabilized the shoulder and felt so comfortable even when not injured they’ve kept the design.
Bill Grumpy Jenkins held many automotive patents he developed on his racing cars. Including the dry sump oil pan.
Racing has contributed greatly to automotive technology and safety over the last century or so. The perfect lab to test out innovations under high stress conditions in actual use.
Racing has become so safe it might not meet Hemingway’s definition of a sport anymore.
When I was a kid it *seemed* there was a death in the road course world every week. It’s still dangerous, but nothing like it was when I first started or the decade prior.
Most of it is a show and not a test of the limits of man and machine anymore.
I do like drag racing because the science and strategy that goes into it is amazing.
Top Fuel and Funny Car develop 11,000 horsepower, which is more than the rest of the car can take. The main issue is to dial in the clutch so as to make just the right amount of horsepower to meet the track conditions. Which means adjusting for air temps, track temps, humidity, sea level, makeup of the surface and a whole host of conditions that affect how the racecar gets the rubber to the road and gets down the track.
In other words, sometimes 10,000 horsepower is preferable to 11,000 horsepower. That is the first calculation. But then humidity and oxygen levels etc mean dialing in 10,000 horsepower, no more no less, becomes an art.
In the world of racing, excluding noosecar, art and science are the words of the day. Experience beats science all the time. Big time racing like F1 have lost my interest. But the garage cars, the small time racer, are still a great show.
You could just as easily turbo a hemi V8 of 350-426 c.i. and achieve even MORE power.
These regulations and CAFE standards are arbitrary and designed to destroy the ICE, all with the bogus intention of fighting a Fiction known as Climate Change.
Climate Change is a MacGuffin designed to push the Mass Transport for Thee, Cars for Me scenario that the “Elite” want.
V8 is freedom, yep can’t have that